about me

I love this job.
I’ve been playing electric and double bass professionally now for over twenty years. In that time I’ve clocked up over four thousand gigs and hundreds of sessions. I’ve gigged and recorded with some of the finest musicians and soloists in the world.....and some of the worst! But for every job I’ve ever done, I’ve always strived to attain the best possible feel and sound.

Both my parents were musicians, and so is my twin brother Clive, so it was kind of inevitable that it would be the way my own life would go. I worked hard at school and college, but it wasn’t until I got out there gigging and touring, working with different drummers every night that I worked out that playing bass is about empathy – listening - and making a whole track, or song or band come alive.

Although It’s a common answer to the question “what sort of music do you like” I can honestly say that I enjoy listening to (and therefore am influenced by) virtually every kind of music out there. I feel excited when I hear a thundering, distorted bass line underpinning a rock or metal song, focused and amazed when hearing someone like Brian Bromberg playing a jazz solo on double bass, and have been know to throw myself to the floor sobbing uncontrollably after just a few bars of the pizz basses at the start of Gabriel Faures’ Pavane.
I’ve discovered over the years that I’m often drawn to music in minor keys (perhaps I have some Russian blood in me!) but I don’t think I’m necessarily a sentimentalist.

Although I still maintain a busy gigging schedule, (I’ve “cut back” to just a few hundred a year!) more recently I’ve started giving time over to musical education. As well as taking on a few private students, I teach at Kevicc School and Dartington College of Arts in Devon and I’m also Head of Bass for The Academy of Music and Sound – a group of five academies around the UK which offer practical musical education for the student who aspires to be a working musician. As well as having written and developed the two year Btec Bass course, I visit all the colleges several times each year to give masterclasses and always take time to talk to the bass students and their teachers on the course so that I can take their views into consideration and improve the course where possible. With the completion of the Btec course, and the gradual expansion of the Academy to 12 centres, my long term plan is to develop a three year degree course offering full time high quality musical education for the working bassist.

Thank you for visiting my website, please feel free to contact me.

Kevin Sanders